Intelligence team no longer sidelined
By Cam Simpson, The Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON -- The FBI is taking out help-wanted ads to declare, “There has never been a more rewarding time to excel among America’s finest.”
The job: intelligence analyst. And the agency needs nearly 900 of them.
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, intelligence analysts were the poor stepchildren of the FBI. Agents viewed their analyst colleagues with skepticism or derision, and fewer than 10 intelligence analysts were assigned to scrutinize Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network before his operatives turned airplanes into missiles.
But the FBI has been working to turn that around. The most visible sign is its recent launch of an unprecedented campaign to recruit and hire about 900 intelligence analysts nationwide, with about half expected to focus on terrorism. They would join almost 1,200 analysts already in the bureau.
The move is a key step in the FBI’s effort to remake itself following sharp criticism in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
Much of that criticism focused on the FBI’s long history of neglecting the craft of “connecting the dots,” or analyzing the data and trying to draw conclusions. For an agency now charged with stopping terrorism before it happens--instead of chasing evidence to win convictions afterward--the turnaround is no small task.
Although she faces an array of challenges, the woman tapped by FBI Director Robert Mueller to create a cadre of top intelligence analysts said the bad old days are gone for good.
“Analysts are a precious, precious commodity” at today’s FBI, said Maureen Baginski, a former top official with the ultra-secret National Security Agency. “It’s an opportunity to serve our country in a completely different way.” Analysts have boss’ attention
Mueller now gets regular briefings from intelligence analysts, a sea change in an agent-dominated culture where analysts, once viewed as support workers, like clerks, couldn’t get near the director.
And analysts are considered vital members of any FBI team assembled to tackle a difficult case or predict impending threats, said Eric Kleppinger, an analyst in the counterintelligence division.
Infusing life and resources into the analysis of terrorism threats was the top priority after Sept. 11. The FBI brought in CIA personnel to get those efforts under way, but they have returned to their home agency, Baginski said.
After the attacks, Mueller plunged into immediate problems of staffing and mission at the FBI’s counterterrorism division.
Now that officials believe those problems have been addressed, they are launching the push for more analysts.
There are few special requirements for the FBI job, beyond strong writing and research skills and a good grasp of logic. The pay for new analysts ranges from $33,431 for the youngest and least qualified to $108,335 for the most senior posts.
The FBI has established its first college of analytic studies and is prepared to train recruits from scratch, although the six-week basic training program falls short of the education that analysts receive under standards recently instituted at the CIA.
Beefed-up training at the FBI is still a major step forward, Baginski said. Congressional intelligence investigators found after Sept. 11 that the agency had no standardized training regimen for analysts.
Investigators also found that the FBI’s agent-dominated culture, and lack of a career path for analysts, made it difficult to attract and retain strong analysts.
FBI analysts do everything from identifying the nation’s vulnerabilities to using disparate pieces of intelligence to figure out where, when and how Al Qaeda may strike next. They can examine financial records to see how terrorists move money. They can analyze weather patterns to predict the yield of drug crops abroad, or chart border seizures to gauge new methods employed by couriers.
All of this is meant to help agents and intelligence officials zero in on their prey.
Too much information
Previously, there was too little information for intelligence analysts to go on as they tried to penetrate the Soviet Union and other closed societies, forcing them to make forecasts and draw conclusions based on limited evidence. The biggest challenge now, Baginski said, is that the information-technology explosion has produced too much data.
There is a preference, in the FBI recruiting effort, for veterans who have some military intelligence training. Baginski has also added one key prerequisite for would-be analysts: a college degree.
Dealing with unqualified analysts already on the payroll will be one of her biggest challenges. An internal FBI review in January 2002 found that 66 percent of the bureau’s analysts were unqualified.
Baginski said this week that about 40 percent of current analysts do not have college degrees. But she noted that some of the best analysts are military veterans with strong intelligence backgrounds, even though they never went to college.